ROBERT G. INGERSOLL'S 
RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS 




By 

HARVEY HUSTED 



HAKVEY HUSTEI) 

taw ^tencxjrap'per, 
WHITE PLAINS, - N. Y. 



ROBERT G. INGERSOLL'S 
RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS 



"In 1 441 printing was discovered. At that time the past 
was a vast cemetery with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of 
men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them. 
The lips of the human race had been sealed. Printing 
gave pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it 
possible for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his 
brain and the wealth of his soul." 



By 

HARVEY HUSTED 



GIFT 
AUTHOR 

DEC 7 >2E 



ROBERT G. INGERSOLL'S 

RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS 



i 

Robert G. Ingersoll was a great Teacher. I had al- 
most said he was a great preacher, for he preached very 
many wonderful sermons. He did not belong to any of 
the so-called evangelical churches, for, like Henry Ward 
Beecher, he was non-sectarian and undenominational. 

He belonged "to that great church that holds the world 
within its starlit aisles, that claims the great and good of 
every race and clime, that finds with joy the grains of gold 
in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of 
good in every soul." The foundation stone of his church 
was love and the dome of his cathedral was the eternal 
blue inlaid with suns. He was not only a great preacher, 
but he practiced what he preached. 

"I want to do what little I can," he says, "to make 
my country truly free, to broaden the intellectual horizon 
of our people, and to destroy the prejudices born of igno- 
rance and fear. When every church becomes a school, 
every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, 
and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and 



6 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 

not until then, will the dream of the poet, patriot, and 
philosopher become a real and blessed truth." 

Another thing he wished to do was to free the orthodox 
clergy. "In spite of all they say against me," he says, 
"I am a great friend of theirs. Something should be 
done for the liberation of these men. They should be 
allowed to grow — to have sunlight and air. They should 
no longer be chained and tied to confessions of faith, to 
mouldy books and musty creeds/' 

"As we become more and more civilized greater liberty 
will be accorded to these men, until finally ministers will 
give to the world their best and highest thoughts." 

"The congregations will finally get tired of hearing 
about the patriarchs and saints, the miracles and won- 
ders, and will insist upon knowing something about the 
men and women of our day, and the accomplishments and 
discoveries of our time. They will finally insist upon 
knowing how to escape the evils of this world instead of 
the next. They will ask light upon the enigmas of this 
life. They will wish to know what we shall do with our 
criminals instead of what God will do with his — how we 
shall do away with beggary and want, with crime and 
misery, with prostitution, disease and famine, with tyranny 
in all its cruel forms, with prisons and scaffolds, and how 
we shall reward the honest workers and fill the world 
with happy homes. These are the problems for the 
pulpits and congregations of an enlightened future." 

Robert Ingersoll was a man possessed of a great deal 
of practical knowledge. He was a philosopher, and spent 
the greater part of his life in search of fundamental truths. 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 7 

He was interviewed on all the vital questions of his day, 
and representatives of the press eagerly sought his opin- 
ions for publication. 

The question has often been asked, What was Robert 
Ingersoll's religious belief? There are many who think 
he was an unbeliever. Let us see if he was not in fact 
a very great believer. 

He was a firm believer in Law, Labor, Liberty, and 
Love. He was a great believer in Truth, Justice and 
Mercy. He believed in the Medicine of Mirth and what 
may be called the Longevity of Laughter. He believed in 
the democracy of the home and the republicanism of the 
fireside. He was a great believer in the Home. "Home is 
where the virtues grow," he says. "The man who builds 
a home erects a temple. If upon this earth we ever have 
a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, 
at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn 
aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the 
old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the 
children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or 
knives, or something, as there are sparks going out to 
join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, 
and the smoke rising like incense from the altar of do- 
mestic joy. I never passed such a house without feeling 
that I had received a benediction." 

He was a great believer in Science, Literature, Art, 
Music. "Civilization, Liberty, Justice, Charity, Intel- 
lectual Advancement," he says, "are all flowers that blos- 
som in the drifted snow." 

He believed in the religion of Reciprocity — helping 



8 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

others help themselves. He believed in the sublime, un- 
broken, and eternal march of causes and effects, in in- 
tellectual hospitality, personal independence, and an hon- 
est search for truth. He was a great believer. He be- 
lieved that you should give to every human being the 
same right that you claim for yourself ; in keeping your 
mind open to the influences of nature, and receiving new 
thoughts with gladness. "There is no man in the world," 
he says, "who believes more in human nature than I do. 
No man believes more in the nobility and splendor of 
humanity than I do." 

He was a great believer in the Natural. He believed 
that above the natural we could not rise, nor below the 
natural fall. He believed that a noble life enriches all 
the world. He believed that pure thoughts, brave words, 
and generous deeds can never die; that they bear fruit 
and add forever to the well-being of the human race. He 
believed in substituting for the Love of Religion the Re- 
ligion of Love. Listen to his beautiful prose poem on 
Love. 

"Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is the 
morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe 
in its cradle and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. 
It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and phi- 
losopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder 
of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It 
was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world 
with melody, for music is the voice of love. Love is the 
magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things 
to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of com- 



Robert G. Inger soil's Religions Teachings 9 

mon clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower the 
heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, 
we are less than beasts, but with it, earth is heaven and 
we are gods." 

Yes, Ingersoll was a great believer. He believed in 
everything that was honest, just, merciful, good and true. 

DID INGERSOLL HAVE A CREED? 

Yes, a creed which satisfies the brain and heart. This 
was his creed : "To love justice, to long for the right, to 
love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to 
forget wrongs and remember benefits, to love the truth, 
to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to 
wage relentless wars against slavery in all its forms; to 
love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to 
love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, 
to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has 
expressed, the noble deeds of all the world; to cultivate 
courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill 
life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of 
loving words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to 
receive new thoughts with gladness, to cultivate hope, to 
see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the 
night, to do the best that can be done, and then to be re- 
signed." 

What does he mean by cultivating hope — seeing the calm 
beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night ? 



10 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 
DID INGERSOLL BELIEVE IN HOPE? 

Oh, yes ! He was a great believer in Hope. 

"The hope of another life was in the heart long be- 
fore the 'sacred books' were written, and will remain 
there long after all the sacred books are known to be 
the works of savage and superstitious men. 

"Hope is the consolation of the world. 

"The wanderers hope for home. Hope builds the house 
and plants the flowers and fills the air with song. 

"The sick and suffering hope for health; Hope gives 
them health and paints the roses in their cheeks. 

"The lonely and forsaken hope for love. 

"Hope brings the lover to their arms. They feel the 
kisses on their eager lips. 

"The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and 
hunger, hope for wealth. Hope fills their thin and 
trembling hands with gold. 

"The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and 
Love leans above the pallid face and whispers, We shall 
meet again." 

Hope is the consolation of the world. 

"Let us hope that if there be a God he is wise and 
good. Let us hope that if there be another life, it will 
bring peace and joy to all the children of men. 

"And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live 
may be a perfect world, a world without a crime, with- 
out a tear. 



Robert G. I nger soil's Religious Teachings 11 



DID INGERSOLL HAVE A GOSPEL? 

He certainly did — a splendid gospel — a gospel suitable 
to all conditions of men. 

"I believe in the Gospel of Cheerfulness," he says; 
"the gospel of good nature; the gospel of good health; 
the gospel of good living; the gospel of intelligence; the 
gospel of good fellowship; the gospel of justice: the 
gospel of Humanity. 

"My gospel of health will bring life. My gospel of in- 
telligence, my gospel of good living, my gospel of good 
fellowship, will cover the earth with happy homes. 

"My gospel will put carpet upon your floors, pictures 
upon your walls, books upon your shelves, and ideas in 
your minds. 

"My gospel will rid the world of the abnormal monsters 
born of ignorance and superstition." 
And then he adds : 

"And I believe, too, in the Gospel of Liberty — in giving 
to others what we claim for ourselves — liberty, a word, 
without which all other words are vain. Liberty is the 
word that all the good have spoken. It is the hope of 
every loving heart, the spark and flame in every noble 
breast, the gem in every splendid soul, the many colored 
dream in every honest heart. O Liberty, float not for- 
ever in the far horizon, remain not forever in the dream 
of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come 
and make thy home among the children of men." 

Then, too, he believed in the Gospel of Love — "love, the 



12 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to 
joy." If Ingersoll had any weakness, it was on the sub- 
ject of love. "Man is strength, woman is beauty ; man is 
courage, woman is love. Where the one man loves the 
one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the 
very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house 
and sing for joy." 

"Some people," he says, "tell me that my doctrine 
about loving and wives, and all that, is splendid for the 
rich, but it won't do for the poor. I tell you," he con- 
tinues, "there is more love in the homes of the poor than 
in the palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in 
it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love 
is a den only fit for wild beasts." 

Then, again, Ingersoll believed in the Gospel of Kind- 
ness. "Kindness is strength," he says. "When your child 
commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your 
heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you 
really and truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Chris- 
tians, and good Christians too, when a child commits a 
fault, drive it from the door and say: 'Never do you 
darken this house again.' And then these same people will 
get down on their knees and ask God to take care of the 
child they have driven from home. I will never ask God 
to take care of my children unless I am doing my level 
best in that same direction. Give them a little liberty 
and love and you cannot drive them out of the house. 
They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant." 

Yes, Ingersoll was a great believer in Kindness. "Do 
you know, there isn't a man in the history of the world 



Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 13 

whose memory we love to revere, who did not have 
within his heart that divine thing called kindness." 

Robert G. Ingersoll had it to the full — full measure, 
pressed down and running over. 

In speaking of the immortal Lincoln, Ingersoll says: 
"Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many re- 
spects, the grandest man ever President of the United 
States. Upon his monument these words should be 
written : Here sleeps the only man in the history of the 
world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute 
power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy." 

Ingersoll also believed in the Gospel of Happiness. 
"Happiness is the true end and aim of life. By happiness 
is meant, not simply the joy of eating and drinking, the 
gratification of the appetite, but good, well being, in the 
highest and noblest forms — the joy that springs from ob- 
ligation discharged, from duty done, from generous acts, 
from being true to the ideal." 

"Happiness is the legal tender of the soul." 

"Joy is wealth." 

"It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be 
powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful 
man. There is only one way to be happy, and that is to 
make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going 
cross lots — you have got to go the regular turnpike road." 

"If you are married, try to make the woman you love 
happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make 
a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he 
says, 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And 
so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy/ " 



14 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religions Teachings 

"The time to be happy is now, 

The place to be happy is here, 

The way to be happy is to make others happy." 
"Do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the 
woman you really love will never grow old to you. 
Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, 
if you really love her, you will always see the face you 
have loved and won. And a woman who really loves a 
man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit 
to her ; he does not tremble ; he is not old ; she always 
sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and 
heart. I like to think of it in that way. I like to think 
that love is eternal ; and to love in that way, and then go 
down the hill of life together, and, as you go down, hear, 
perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of 
joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the 
tree of age." 

Robert Ingersoll also believed in the Gospel of Peace. 
In his sermon on "How to Reform Mankind" he says: 

"Every good man, every good woman, should try to do 
away with war, to stop the appeal to savage force. Man 
in a savage state relies upon his strength, and decides for 
himself what is right and what is wrong. Civilized men 
do not settle their differences by a resort to arms. They 
submit the quarrel to arbitration and courts. This is the 
great difference between the savage and the civilized. 

"Nations, however, sustain the relations of savages to 
each other. There is no way of settling their disputes. 
Each nation decides for itself, and each nation endeavors 
to carry its decision into effect. This produces war. 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religions Teachings 15 

"Thousands of men at this moment are trying to in- 
vent more deadly weapons to destroy their fellow men. 
For eighteen hundred years peace has been preached, and 
yet the civilized nations are the most warlike of the world." 

"If we wish to do away with war, we must provide for 
the settlement of national differences by an international 
court. This court should be in perpetual session; its 
members should be selected by the various governments 
to be affected by its decisions, and, at the command and 
disposal of this court, the rest of Christendom being dis- 
armed, there should be a military force sufficient to carry 
its judgments into effect. There should be no other ex- 
cuse, no other business for an army or navy in the civilized 
world." 

A quarter of a century ago, Robert G. Ingersoll pre- 
dicted the downfall of the German Empire. In his ser- 
mon on "Superstition," in speaking of Spain, Portugal, 
and Germany, he said: 

"Spain was at one time owner of half the earth, and 
held within her greedy hands the gold and silver of the 
world. At that time all nations were in the darkness of 
superstition. In some countries men began to interest 
themselves in science, but not in Spain. Some countries 
were in the dawn of a new day, but Spain gladly remained 
in the night. With fire and sword she exterminated the 
men who thought. Other nations grew great while Spain 
grew small. Day by day her power waned, but her faith 
in superstition increased. One by one her colonies were 
lost, but she kept her creed. She waged war against the 
great republic. Her armies were defeated and captured, 



16 Robert G. IngersoWs Religious Teachings 

her ships battered, beached, and burned, and in her help- 
lessness she sued for peace. 

"Portugal, slowly dying, growing poorer every day, 
still clings to the faith. Her prayers are never answered, 
but she makes them still. 

"Austria is nearly gone, a victim of superstition. 

"Germany is traveling toward the night. God placed 
her Kaiser on the throne. The people must obey. Phi- 
losophers and scientists fall upon their knees and be- 
come the puppets of the divinely crowned." 

In his splendid sermon on "Which Way" he gives a 
vision of the future: "I see a world at war, and in the 
storm and chaos of the deadly strife thrones crumble, 
altars fall, chains break, creeds change. The highest peaks 
are touched with holy light. The dawn has blossomed — 
it is day. 

"I look again. I see discoverers sailing across myste- 
rious seas. I see inventors cunningly enslave the forces 
of the world. I see the houses being built for schools; 
teachers, interpreters of nature, slowly taking the place of 
preachers. Philosophers arise, thinkers give the world 
their wealth of brain, and lips grow rich with words of 
truth. 

"This is. 

"I look again, but towards the future now. I see a 
world at peace, where labor reaps its true reward, a world 
without prisons, without workhouses, without asylums 
for the insane, a world upon which the gibbet's shadow 
does not fall, a world where the poor girl, trying to win 
bread with the needle, that has been called the asp for the 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 17 

breast of the poor, is not driven to the desperate choice 
of crime or death, or suicide or shame. I see a world 
without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heart- 
less stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the pallid face of 
crime, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. I 
see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and 
fair, the married harmony of form and function ; and as 
I look life lengthens, fear dies, joy deepens, love intensi- 
fies, and over all in the great dome, shines the great star 
of human hope. 

"This shall be!" 

Let us hope, that — 

The times that tried men's souls is nearly o'er, 

That Liberty, Love and Law may reign with Peace, 
That war and want and woe and waste shall cease, 

And Freedom's flag shall float on every shore. 

WAS ROBERT INGERSOLL A CHRISTIAN? 

Yes, he was a Christian of the highest type, but he was 
not orthodox. All reformation comes from being un- 
orthodox. Orthodoxy means intellectual stagnation. 
Heterodoxy means progress. Of the council of clergymen 
which met in Salamanca in 1486 to examine and test the 
views of Christopher Columbus, a considerable portion 
held to be grossly heterodox to believe that by sailing 
westward, the eastern parts of the world could be reached. 

"Heterodoxy," so-called, says Mr. Ingersoll, "occupies 
the halfway station between superstition and reason. A 
heretic is one who is still dominated by religion, but in the 
east of whose mind there is a dawn. He is one who has 



18 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 

seen the morning star ; he has not entire confidence in the 
day, and imagines in some way that even the light he sees 
was born of the night. In the mind of the heretic, dark- 
ness and light are mingled ; the ties of intellectual kindred 
bind him to the night, and yet he has enough of the spirit 
of adventure to look toward the east." 

"Of course," he says, "I admit that Christians and 
heretics are both honest ; a real Christian must be honest 
and a real heretic must be the same. All men must be 
honest in what they think ; but all men are not honest in 
what they say. In the invisible world of the mind every 
man is honest. The judgment never was bribed. Speech 
may be false, but conviction is always honest. So that 
the difference between honest belief as shared by honest 
religious thinkers and heretics, is a difference of intelli- 
gence. It is the difference between a ship lashed to the 
dock, and one making a voyage; it is the difference be- 
tween twilight and dawn, that is to say, the coming of the 
night and the coming of the morning. ,, 

Is it necessary to believe in dreams and demonology, 
myths and miracles, in order to be a Christian? If so, 
Robert Ingersoll was not a Christian. 

Is it necessary to believe in the Mosaic account of the 
creation, the flood, the tower of Babel, General Joshua 
turning back the sun, or the story of Jonah and the whale, 
in order to be a Christian? A very large majority of the 
Christian people of today, if asked that question, would 
say No. 

One does not have to believe in all the mistakes of 
Moses in order to believe in the merits of Christ. Must 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 19 

we believe in the origin and destiny of the human race as 
taught by the scriptures in order to be Christlike? Were 
there no Christlike men and women before the time of 
Christ? Is Christianity mainly a belief, or is it a life? 
Must you be a Christian before you can be good, or must 
you be good before you are a Christian ? Are members of 
the Unitarian churches, who live according to their highest 
ideals — are they Christians? Members in good standing 
in the Universalist churches, are they Christians ? 

"I met a man the other day," said Robert Ingersoll, 
"who said to me, 'I am a Unitarian-Universalist.' 'What 
do you mean by that?' 'Well/ he said, 'this is what I 
mean — the Unitarian thinks he is too good to be damned, 
and the Universalist thinks God is too good to damn him, 
and 1 believe them both/ " 

If a person believes substantially in the doctrine as 
taught by Christ, does that make him a Christian? If so, 
Robert Ingersoll was a Christian. That is, he was a 
twentieth-century Christian, and not a Christian of the 
first century. He was a modern, not an ancient Christian. 

Shailer Matthews, professor of historical and compara- 
tive theology in the University of Chicago, speaking con- 
cerning "The Gospel and the Modern Man," says : "There 
are thousands of men and women of noblest Christian 
character, of splendid moral enthusiasm and religious 
earnestness, who believe in a hell of literal fire, in a per- 
sonal devil, in demoniacal possession, in the absolute in- 
errancy of all the biblical writings, in the creation of the 
world in six days, in the physical coming of Christ in the 
sky, and in the materialistic resurrection of the body 



20 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 

through a miraculous recombination of its original or other 
particles. Such persons may be modern to their ringer 
tips when it comes to business, but religiously and philo- 
sophically they are, to all intents and purposes, citizens of 
the first century of our era. Theologically speaking, they 
are contemporary but not modern. 

"No serious thinker can fail to respect such loyalty to 
a literalistic gospel or to seek to emulate the earnest re- 
ligion it engenders. You will find it in the hearts of the 
consecrated evangelists, lay workers, Salvation Army 
lasses and American Volunteers. But what can be done in 
the case of a man who cannot share in such indifference 
to the modern world? Shall he be forbidden the King- 
dom of God except as he first rejects his science and his 
belief of the God of law ? Must he who passionately, even 
heroically, holds to the absoluteness of the supernatural, 
timeless, spiritual life, be forced to clothe his faith in 
symbols he believes to be but relative and unsatisfying?" 

Robert Ingersoll was a modern Christian, a model Chris- 
tian, and an exemplary Christian. If it were possible 
for a man to live a purely Ingersollian life, he would be 
about as near perfect as men get to be in this world. 

Of course we know that Mr. Ingersoll said that he was 
an Agnostic, but that had reference to matters about which 
he did not pretend to know. One thing is sure, he was not 
an Atheist, because he says that a man cannot be an 
Atheist because nobody knows that a God does not exist. 

What does Mr. Ingersoll say concerning Christ? This 
is what he says : "I suppose I believe substantially in the 
doctrine as taught by Christ." There you have it in a nut- 



Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 21 

shell. He believed substantially in the teachings of Christ. 
Any man who substantially believes and lives up to the 
teachings of Christ must of necessity be a Christian. 
What else does he say ? 

"Let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ 
I have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the 
place where man has died for man is holy ground. And 
let me say, once for all, that to that great and serene man 
I gladly pay the tribute of my admiration and my tears. 
He was a reformer in his day. He was an infidel in his 
time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was 
destroyed by hypocrites, who have in all ages done what 
they could to trample freedom and manhood out of the 
human mind. Had I lived at that time, I would have been 
his friend, and should he come again he will not find a 
better friend than I will be. 

"That is for the man. For the theological creation 
I have a different feeling. For the man who in the dark- 
ness said, 'My God, why hast thou forsaken me?' — for 
that man I have nothing but respect, admiration and love. 
Back of the theological shreds and patches hiding the real 
Christ, I see a genuine man." 

"You must remember," says Colonel Ingersoll, "that 
Christ never wrote a solitary word of the New Testament 
— not one word. There is an account that he once stooped 
down and wrote something in the sand, but that has not 
been preserved. He never told anybody to write a word. 
He never said, 'Matthew, remember this. Mark, do not 
forget to put that down. Luke, be sure that in your gospel 
you have this. John, do not forget it.' Not one word. 



22 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

And it has always seemed to me that a being coming from 
another world, with a message of infinite importance to 
mankind, should at least have verified that message by his 
own signature. Is it not strange that he gave no orders 
to have his words preserved — words upon which hang the 
salvation of a world? 

"If what is known as the Christian religion is true, 
nothing can be more wonderful than the fact that Mat- 
thew, Mark, and Luke say nothing about salvation by 
faith; that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the 
atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the 
necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this 
world or another." 

THE GOSPEL OF SALVATION AS TAUGHT BY 
CHRIST. 

In his wonderful sermon entitled, "What Must We Do 
to Be Saved ?" Robert Ingersoll says : 

"A while ago I made up my mind to find out what was 
necessary for me to do in order to be saved. 

"If I have got a soul I want it saved. I do not wish to 
lose anything that is of value. For thousands of years the 
world has been asking the question, What must we do to 
be saved ? 

Saved from poverty? No. Saved from crime? No. 
Tyranny? No. But, What must we do to be saved from 
the eternal wrath of the God who made us all? And 
let me say right here that if God made us, he will not de- 
stroy us. Infinite wisdom never made a poor investment. 
Upon all the works of an Infinite God a dividend must 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 23 

finally be declared. There is no bankrupt court in heaven. 

"So I made up my mind to see what I had to do in 
order to save my soul according to the Testament, and 
thereupon I read it. I read the gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, and I found that the church had 
been deceiving me. I found that the clergy did not under- 
stand their own book — that they had been building upon 
passages that had been interpolated; upon passages that 
were entirely untrue, and I will tell you why I think so." 

Robert G. Ingersoll was a great Lawyer. 

He understood the framework, the anatomy, the foun- 
dations of law; was familiar with the great streams and 
currents and tides of authority. He had breadth and 
scope, resource, learning, logic, and above all a sense of 
justice. He was painstaking and conscientious — anxious 
to know the facts. He was a man of great faith, particu- 
larly in facts. He knew how to winnow the golden grains 
of truth from the chaff of falsehood. He knew that hon- 
esty is the oak around which all other virtues cling. 

Like Descartes, he resolved to "take nothing for truth 
without clear knowledge that it is such." And so, with his 
X-ray mind, he takes up the gospels one by one to see 
what each has to say concerning what we must do in 
order to be saved. 

"Now, according to the church," he says, "the first gos- 
pel was written by Matthew. As a matter of fact he never 
wrote a word of it — never saw it, never heard of it, and 
probably never will. But," he says, "for the sake of the 
discussion I will admit that he wrote it. I will admit that 
he was with Christ for three years ; that he was his con- 



24 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

stant companion; that he shared his sorrows and his 
triumphs ; that he heard his words by the lonely lakes, the 
barren hills, in synagogue and street, and that he knew 
his heart and became acquainted with his thoughts and 
aims. 

"Now let us see what Matthew says we must do in 
order to be saved. And I take it that, if this is true, 
Matthew is as good authority as any minister in the world. 

"The first thing I find upon the subject of salvation is 
in the fifth chapter of Matthew, and is embraced in what 
is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount. It is 
as follows: 

" 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king- 
dom of heaven/ Good," says Robert Ingersoll. " 'Blessed 
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy/ Good! 
whether they belong to any church or not ; whether they 
believe in the Bible or not. 

" 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God/ 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be 
called the children of God. Blessed are they which are 
persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the king- 
dom of heaven/ Good !" says Robert Ingersoll. 

"In the same sermon Christ says : 'Think not that I 
am come to destroy the law of the prophets. I am come 
not to destroy but to fulfill/ And then he makes use of 
this remarkable language, almost as applicable today as it 
was then : 

" 'For I say unto you that except your righteousness 
shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Phari- 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 25 

sees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.' 
Good! 

"In the sixth chapter I find the following: Tor if ye 
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will 
also forgive you; but if ye forgive men not their tres- 
passes, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.' 

"There is an offer. There is a square promise. There 
is a contract. I accept the conditions," says Lawyer In- 
gersoll. "I accept the terms, and I never will ask any God 
to treat me better than I treat my fellow-men. It does 
not say that you must believe the Old Testament, or be 
baptized, or join the church. Not a word about eating or 
fasting, denying or believing. It simply says, if you for- 
give others God will forgive you, and it must of necessity 
be true. No God could afford to damn a forgiving man. 

"The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter 
and the second verse : Tor with what judgment ye judge, 
ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it 
shall be measured to you again.' Good ! That suits me. 

"And in the twelfth chapter : Tor whosoever shall do 
the will of my Father that is in heaven, the same is my 
brother and sister and mother. For the son of man shall 
come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then 
he shall reward every man according' — to the church he 
belongs to? No. To the manner in which he was bap- 
tized ? No. According to his creed ? No. Then he shall 
reward every man according to his work.' Good ! I sub- 
scribe to that doctrine," says Ingersoll. 

"And in the eighteenth chapter: 'And Jesus called a 
little child to him and stood him in the midst ; and said, 



26 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

'Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and be- 
come as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom 
of heaven. ' 

"I do not wonder that in his day, surrounded by Scribes 
and Pharisees, he turned lovingly to little children. And 
yet see what children the little children of God have been. 
What an interesting dimpled darling John Calvin was! 
Think of that prattling babe, Jonathan Edwards ! Think 
of the infants that founded the Inquisition, that invented 
instruments of torture to tear human flesh. They were 
the ones that had become as little children. They were 
the children of faith. 

"So I find in the nineteenth chapter: 'And behold, 
one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing 
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?' Now, there is 
a fair issue. Here is a child of God asking God what is 
necessary for him to do to inherit eternal life. And God 
said to him, 'Keep the commandments?' And the child 
said to the Almighty, 'Which?' And Jesus said: 'Thou 
shalt do no murder; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not 
bear false witness; honor thy father and thy mother; 
and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' 

"Jesus did not say to him: 'You must believe in me, 
that I am the only begotten son of the living God.' He 
did not say : 'You must be born again. You must believe 
the Bible. You must remember the Sabbath day to keep 
it holy.' He simply said, 'Keep the commandments,' and 
repeated them. 

Thereupon the young man — who I think was mistaken 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 27 

— said : 'All these things have I kept from my youth up. 
What lack I yet?' 

"Now comes an interpolation," says Ingersoll. "What 
right has the church to add conditions of salvation? Why 
should we suppose that Christ failed to tell the young 
man all that was necessary for him to do? Is it possible 
that he left out some important thing purposely to mis- 
lead? 

"In the old times, when the church got a little scarce of 
money, they always put in a passage praising poverty. 
So they had this young man ask, 'What lack I yet ?' 'And 
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell 
that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven.' The church has always been willing 
to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. And when 
the next verse was written the church must have been 
nearly bankrupt. 'And again I say unto you, It is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a 
rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' Did you ever 
know a wealthy disciple to unload on account of that 
verse ? 

"And then comes another verse which I believe is an 
interpolation: 'And everyone that hath forsaken houses, 
or brethren or sister, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an 
hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life/ 

"Christ never said it. Never. 'Whosoever shall for- 
sake father and mother.' Why, he said unto this man that 
asked him, 'What shall I do to inherit eternal life?' — 
among other things, he said, 'Honor thy father and thy 



28 Robert G. IngersoWs Religious Teachings 

mother.' And we turn over the page and he says: 'If 
you will desert your father and mother you shall nave 
everlasting life.' 

"I do not accept the terms," said Ingersoll, "and I will 
never desert the ones I love for the promise of any God. 
The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love 
has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is 
the fireside around which gather father and mother and 
the sweet babes." 

Here was a great lawyer, a tender-hearted, loving man, 
pleading the cause of Christ, and refusing to believe that 
Christ uttered any such statement, and defending him 
against the slander of the church. 

"I find in the twenty-fifth chapter another condition of 
salvation," says Mr. Ingersoll. " 'Then shall the king say 
unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my 
father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world. For I was ahungered and ye 
gave me meat ; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink ; I was 
a stranger and ye took me in ; naked and ye clothed me ; 
I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye 
came unto me.' Good!" says Robert Ingersoll. "I tell 
you tonight that God will not punish with eternal thirst 
the man who has put the cup of cold water to the lips of 
his neighbor. God will not leave in the eternal nakedness 
of pain the man who has clothed his fellowmen. 

"Now I have read you substantially everything in Mat- 
thew on the subject of salvation. That is all there is. 
There is not a word about believing anything. It is the 
gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self- 



Robert G. Inget soil's Religious Teachings 29 

denial, and if only that gospel had been preached, persecu- 
tion never would have shed one drop of blood. Not one. 

"Matthew believed that God would show mercy to the 
merciful, that he would not allow those who fed the 
hungry to starve ; that he would not put in the flames of 
hell those who had given cold water to the thirsty; that 
he would not cast into the eternal dungeon of his wrath 
those who had visited the imprisoned ; and that he would 
not damn men who forgave others. 

The gospel of mark. 

"Let us now see what Mark thought it necessary for a 
man to do to save his soul. Mark substantially agrees 
with Matthew, and says that God will be merciful to the 
merciful, kind to the kind, that he will pity the pitying 
and love the loving. 

"Mark upholds the religion of Matthew until we come 
to the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the sixteenth chap- 
ter, and then we strike an interpolation put in by hy- 
pocrisy, put in by priests who longed to grasp with bloody 
hands the sceptre of universal power. Let me read it to 
you. It is the most infamous passage in the Bible. Christ 
never said it. No sensible man ever said it. 'And he said 
unto them (his disciples), Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall 
be damned/ 

"That passage was written so that fear would give alms 
to hypocrisy. Now I propose to prove to you that this is 
an interpolation. How will I do it? In the first place, 
not a word is said about belief in Matthew. In the next 



30 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 

place, not one word about belief in Mark until I come to 
that verse; and where is that said to have been spoken? 
According to Mark, it is a part of the last conversation of 
Jesus Christ, just before, according to the account, he 
ascended bodily before their eyes. 

"If there ever was an important thing happened in this 
world, that was it. If there is any conversation that 
people would be apt to recollect, it would be the last con- 
versation with a God before he rose visibly through the 
air and seated himself upon the throne of the Infinite. 

"We have in this Testament five accounts of the last 
conversation happening between Jesus Christ and his 
apostles. Matthew gives it, and yet Matthew does not 
state that in that conversation that Christ said: 'Who- 
soever believeth and is baptized shall be saved and whoso- 
ever believeth not shall be damned/ 

'Then I turn to Luke, and he gives an account of this 
same last conversation, and rtot one word does he say 
upon that subject. Then I turn to John, and he gives an 
account of the last conversation, but not one solitary word 
on the subject of belief or unbelief. 

"Then I turn to the first chapter of Acts, and there I 
find an account of the last conversation, and there is not 
one word upon this subject. This is a demonstration 
that the passage in Mark is an interpolation. 

"What other reason have I got? There is not one 
particle of sense in it. Why? No man can control his 
belief. You hear evidence for and against, and the in- 
tegrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells you 
which side rises and which side falls. You cannot 



Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 31 

believe as you wish. You must believe as you must. 

"I have another reason. I am much obliged to the 
gentleman who interpolated these passages. I am obliged 
to him that he put in some more — two more. Now listen : 
'And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my 
name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with 
new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they 
drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They shall 
lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.' 

"Bring on your believer ! Let him cast out a devil. I 
do not ask for a large one. Let him take up serpents. 
Let me mix a dose for the believer, and if it does not hurt 
him I will join the church. 

"Oh ! but they say, Those things only lasted through the 
apostolic age/ Let us see. 'Go into all the world and 
preach the gospel, and whosoever believes and is baptized 
shall be saved; and these signs shall follow them that 
believe.' How long? I think at least until they had 
gone into all the world. Certainly those signs should fol- 
low until all the world had been visited. And yet if that 
declaration was in the mouth of Christ, he then knew that 
one-half of the world was unknown, and that he would be 
dead fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years before his 
disciples would know that there was another continent. 
And yet he said, 'Go into all the world and preach the 
gospel,' and he knew then that it would be fourteen hun- 
dred and fifty-nine years before anybody could go. 

"That passage made the horizon of a thousand years 
lurid with the fagot's flames. That passage contradicts 
the Sermon on the Mount, travesties the Lord's Prayer, 



32 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

turns the splendid religion of deed and duty into the 
superstition of creed and credulity. I deny that doctrine. 
It is infamous. Christ never said it. 

The gospel of luke. 

"Luke agrees substantially with Matthew and Mark, 
and then we come to the nineteenth chapter. 'And Zac- 
cheus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the 
half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken 
anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him 
fourfold/ And Jesus said unto him, 'This day is salvation 
come to this house/ 

"That is good doctrine," says the great Agnostic. "He 
did not ask Zaccheus what he believed. He did not ask 
him: 'Do you believe in the Bible? Do you believe in 
the five points ? Have you ever been baptized — sprinkled ? 
Oh! immersed?' 'Half of my goods I give to the poor, 
and if I have taken anything from any man by false 
accusation, I restore him fourfold.' And Christ said, 'This 
day is salvation come to this house.' Good! That is 
good doctrine. 

"I read also in Luke that Christ, when upon the cross, 
forgave his murderers, and that is considered the shining 
gem in the crown of his mercy. He forgave his mur- 
derers. He forgave the men who drove the nails in his 
hands, in his feet, that plunged a spear in his side; the 
soldier that in the hour of death offered him in mockery 
the bitterness to drink. He forgave them all freely, and 
yet, although he would forgive them, he will in the nine- 
teenth century, as we are told by the orthodox church, 



Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 33 

damn to eternal fire a noble man for the expression of 
his honest thoughts. That will not do. 

"I find, too, in Luke, an account of two thieves that 
were crucified at the same time. The other gospels speak 
of them. One says they both railed upon him. Another 
says nothing about it. In Luke we are told that one railed 
upon him, but one of the thieves looked and pitied Christ, 
and Christ said to that thief : 'Today shalt thou be with 
me in paradise.' Who was this thief ? What did he be- 
lieve? I do not know. Did he believe in the Old Testa- 
ment ? In the miracles ? I do not know. Did he believe 
that Christ was God? I do not know. Why then was 
the promise made to him that he should meet Christ in 
paradise? Simply because he pitied suffering innocence 
on the cross. God cannot afford to damn any man who is 
capable of pitying anybody." 

The gospel of john 

"And now we come to John, and that is where the 
trouble commences," says Ingersoll. "The other gospels 
teach that God will be merciful to the merciful, forgiving 
to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving to the loving, 
just to the just, merciful to the good. Now we come to 
John, and here is another doctrine. And allow me to say 
that John was not written until long after the others. 
John was mostly written by the church. 

" 'Jesus answered and said unto him : Verily, verily I 
say unto thee, Except a man be born again he cannot 
see the Kingdom of God/ Why did he not tell Matthew 
that? Why did not he tell Mark and Luke that? They 
never heard of it, or forgot it, or they did not believe it 



34 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

" 'And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder- 
ness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal 
life/ 

"In the book of John, all these doctrines of regeneration 
— that it is necessary to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
that salvation depends upon belief — all these doctrines find 
their warrant nowhere else. 

"Read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then read John, 
and you will agree with me that the three first gospels 
teach that if we are kind and forgiving, God will be 
kind and forgiving to us. In John we are told that an- 
other man can be good for us, and that the only way to get 
to heaven is to believe something that we know is not so. 
All these passages about believing in Christ, drinking his 
blood and eating his flesh, are afterthoughts. They were 
written by the theologians, and in a few years they will be 
considered unworthy of the lips of Christ. 

"Now, upon these gospels that I have read the churches 
rest ; and out of these things, mistakes and interpolations, 
they have made their creeds.' , 

WAS INGERSOLL AN ICONOCLAST? 
"Then they say to me, 'What do you propose? You 
have torn this down, what do you propose to give us in 
place of it?' 

"I have not torn the good down. I have only en- 
deavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. 
I do not tear away the passage: God will be merciful to 
the merciful. I do not destroy the promise: If you will 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 35 



forgive others, God will forgive you. I would not for 
anything blot out the faintest star that shines in the hori- 
zon of human despair, nor in the sky of human hope, but 
I will do what I can to get that infinite shadow out of the 
heart of man. 

" 'What do you propose in place of this?' 

"Well, in the first place I propose good fellowship — 
good friends all around. No matter what we believe, 
shake hands and let it go. That is your opinion : this is 
mine. Science makes friends; religion, superstition, 
makes enemies. They say belief is important. I say no, 
actions are important. Judge by deed not by creed. Good 
fellowship, good friends, sincere men and women, mutual 
forbearance, born of mutual respect. I believe in the gos- 
pel of cheerfulness, the gospel of good nature, the gospel 
of good health, the gospel of good living, the gospel of 
intelligence, the gospel of education, the gospel of justice. 

"I do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the 
church. If I rob Mr. Smith and God forgives me, how 
does that help Smith? If I, by slander, cover some poor 
girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she 
withers away like a blighted flower and afterward I get 
the forgiveness of God, how does that help her? If there 
is another world, we have got to settle with the people 
we have wronged in this. You must reap the result of 
your acts. Even when forgiven by the one you have in- 
jured, it is not as though the injury had not been done. 
That is what I believe in. And if it goes hard with me, 
I will stand it, and I will cling to my logic and I will 
bear it like a man. My doctrine will give us health, wealth, 



36 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

and happiness. Let us have the gospel of intelligence. 
That is the only lever capable of raising mankind. Give 
us intelligence and in a little while a man will find that he 
cannot steal without robbing himself. He will find that 
he cannot murder without assassinating his own joy. He 
will find that every crime is a mistake. He will find that 
only that man carries the cross who does wrong, and that 
upon the man who does right, the cross turns to wings 
that will bear him upward forever. He will find that even 
intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all 
the human race. 

"I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he 
will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. 

'That he will not torture the forgiving. Upon that 
rock I stand. 

'That every man should be true to himself, and that 
there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. 

"The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, 
have nothing to fear, either in this world, or the world 
to come. Upon that rock I stand." 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 37 



II 

From the gospels alone, Colonel Ingersoll has shown 
that salvation is not based upon belief, but upon good 
works. 

"We are told that all who believe in this scheme of re- 
demption and have faith in the redeemer will be rewarded 
with eternal joy. Some think that men can be saved by- 
faith without works, some think that faith and works are 
both essential, but all agree that without faith there is no 
salvation. If you repent and believe on Jesus Christ, 
then his goodness will be imputed to you, and the penalty 
of the law, so far as you are concerned, will be satisfied 
by the sufferings of Christ. You may repent and reform, 
you may make restitution, you may practice all the virtues, 
but without this belief in Christ, the gates of heaven will 
be shut against you forever. 

"That doctrine is not taught by Matthew, Mark, or 
Luke — only by John. John's gospel will not stand the 
acid test of reason. The four gospels cannot be har- 
monized. If John is true, the others are false. If the 
others are true, John is false. From this there is no 
escape. 

"Matthew, Mark, and Luke never had the faintest con- 
ception of the Christian religion. They knew nothing of 



38 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

the atonement, nothing of salvation by faith. So that if a 
man had read only Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and had 
strictly followed what he found, he would have found him- 
self, after death, in perdition. 

"Why should not we doubt St. John's gospel? It is 
against the doctrine of probability. It is not in accord 
with reason, observation, or experience. It never can be 
necessary for a man to throw away his reason to save his 
soul. ,, 

It is imposible for all to believe alike. Is it desirable 
that all should be exactly alike in their religious con- 
victions ? 

"Do we not know," says Colonel Ingersoll, "that there 
are no two persons in all the world alike ; no two leaves in 
all the forests alike, no two grains of sand upon the ocean's 
shore alike? Infinite diversity is the law. Religion tries 
to force all minds into the same mould. We should all 
remember that to be like other people is to be unlike our- 
selves. 

"Nearly all people stand in horror of annihilation, and 
yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate your- 
self. 

"Orthodox Christians say that doubt is dangerous. 
Why? Because a man who doubts is very apt to in- 
vestigate, and a man who investigates very likely will 
reason, and a man cannot very well reason without think- 
ing, and the free exercise of thought leads to truth, and 
truth is the soil in which orthodox Christianity cannot 
grow/' 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 39 

Prof. M. L. Burton, president emeritus of Smith Col- 
lege, in his book entitled "Our Intellectual Attitude in an 
Age of Criticism," says : "We live in an age of criticism. 
Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we approve 
of it or not, whether we are a part of it or not, the fact 
remains that the spirit of criticism has captivated our 
generation. 

"By the term criticism we mean preeminently the meth- 
od employed today by scholars in every field in search of 
truth, and in their eagerness to expand the borders of 
knowledge. It is the method which approaches every 
question with a clear determination to be satisfied with 
nothing but well attested facts. What man has thought 
or believed about a subject is but one element of the 
problem. Nothing is accepted as true or final just be- 
cause a previous generation has believed it. The history 
of any problem is not disregarded but accepted only as an 
evidence of what others have thought about it. Back of 
their conclusions were certain facts which the critical 
scholar demands. He can find no satisfaction in theories, 
hypotheses, or beliefs save as he knows the grounds of 
those interpretations. He is not animated so much by a 
desire to prove or disprove what others believe as he is 
to find the ultimr'Le truth involved in any question. For 
him the only defense of any truth is its strict conformity 
to the actual facts of a stern and unalterable outer world 
combined with an unqualified satisfaction of the demands 
of reason and experience. Such is his ideal. It becomes 
for the true critic his very meat and drink. All error, 
inaccuracy, and false inference he abhors. He demands 



40 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

the truth. Consequently as he approaches a subject he 
proposes to learn all there is to be known about it. If it is 
a literary document, he insists upon knowing as accurately 
as possible when it was written, under what circum- 
stances it was produced, out of what sort of civilization 
it came, and in general what the background was upon 
which it appeared. He wishes to know, if possible, who 
the author was, what his purpose was in writing, to 
whom the work was addressed, what his own experience 
had been which prompted his message, what other docu- 
ments he produced and at what time in his career the 
particular work under investigation was written. 

"The true critic, moreover, is determined to know 
whether more than one hand is evident in the document, 
whether later writers or scribes have made mistakes in 
copying, or have deliberately altered the text, or have 
omitted or added new sections. He therefore studies care- 
fully every word and sentence and follows with the clos- 
est scrutiny the development of the thought to test its 
genuineness and originality. . . . 

"It is this sort of an approach to a subject, this method 
by which a scholar endeavoring to arrive at tenable con- 
clusion, this means by which he struggles to find new truth 
and make new discoveries that we mean when we use the 
term 'criticism/ . . . The most perplexing illustration of the 
statement that we live in an age of criticism is found in the 
realm of a biblical scholarship. . . . Witness, for example, 
the extent and variety of the criticism passed upon the 
Christian church. We are told that it is inefficient and ill- 
adjusted to the needs of modern society. Statistics are 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 41 

used to show the decline in attendance and accessions. 
Great, nation-wide campaigns are conducted in the name 
of Men and Religion, because it is alleged that the church 
has lost its grasp on men. It is asserted that the church 
fails to interest the young people and that a deplorable 
chasm exists between it and the laboring classes. It is 
insisted that the average church has failed to sense the 
remarkable changes in current thought, does not under- 
stand the point of view of the modern man, and is making 
absurd creedal demands of those scientifically trained. 

"Criticism is rampant. It is king, and just because 
criticism is king, doubt is rampant." 

We now see that "a profound change is taking place 
in the world of thought," as proclaimed by Mr. Ingersoll 
in his article on "The Christian Religion" published in 
The North American Review in 1881, and that the pulpit 
is losing because the people are growing. "The dogmas 
of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, 
nor satisfy the hunger of the heart." 

Robert Ingersoll did not regard Jesus Christ as divine. 
He regarded him as a devout Jew, and held that in his 
utterances he was true to his theory, to his philosophy. 
"His sayings that are, in my judgment, in accordance with 
what I believe to have been his philosophy, I accept, and 
the others I throw away. He lived a self-denying loving 
life, and died for what he believed to be the truth." The 
men and women of intelligence do not look upon Christ 
as a creator or a redeemer, but rather as a reformer. 

Robert Ingersoll thought too much of the loving char- 



42 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

acter of Christ to attribute to him many of the doctrines 
taught in St. John's gospel. 

Robert Ingersoll regarded the Bible as a collection of 
books, written by unknown men in unknown times. Mod- 
ern Christianity is reluctantly, but steadily, tending to the 
conception of the Bible's human origin, and Ingersoll, 
more than any other man, is responsible for the im- 
provement. 

He regarded the Old Testament as a history of the Jew- 
ish people, and the New Testament as containing many 
sublime truths, but nothing superhuman. Only so far as 
the Bible speaks the truth is it holy and sacred. 

The intelligent men and women of today do not gen- 
erally believe that God is the author of the Bible. God 
is a world maker, not a book maker. It is a very easy 
thing to distinguish between the things that God has made, 
and man has made. Behold, the heavens ! How majesti- 
cally the stars twinkle. With what precision the planets 
move. With what infinite order and harmony they make 
their celestial journeys, giving us the same signs of the 
Zodiac today as when Christ was born in Bethlehem. 
The constellations bear the imprint of God's handiwork. 
If the Bible were really and truly written by the finger of 
God, we could not fail to see the imprint of his omnipotent 
fingers. We see it in bud and blossom and ripened fruit ; 
in sowing and reaping; in sunshine and in shower, in 
mountain peak and perfumed dell, but we fail to see the 
print of his finger in the books called the Bible any more 
distinctly than in many other books. 

Of the sacred myths, Ingersoll says: "We find, in all 



Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 43 

these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and ef- 
forts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried 
to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eter- 
nal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly 
sought to make with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that 
would in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's 
perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, 
and tears and smiles, and they were touched and colored 
by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of 
birth and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars 
with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties 
of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were 
music, and all the lakes and streams and springs, the moun- 
tains, woods, and perfumed dells were haunted by a thou- 
sand fairy forms. They filled the veins of Spring with 
tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast 
the throne and home of love; filled Autumn's arms with 
sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves ; and pictured 
Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his 
withered face, Cordelia's tears. 

"These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for 
many ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and 
kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all 
these things are true and all inspired of God, and that 
eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny 
or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fabled World would 
lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to 
every brave and thoughtful man." 

"The people have outgrown the myths and miracles. 
The church has failed to keep in touch with intellectual 



44 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 

advancement. It has stood in fear of the sciences. From 
Galileo to Haeckel, it has not been in sympathy with the 
great thinkers. In order to make them good it has de- 
pended too much upon fear, and now that we know there 
is no cause for fear, the people are drifting away from 
the churches." 

After listening to a discussion on Evolution, a mother 
said to her daughter, "Isn't it outrageous that we have to 
listen to such heresy?" "Yes, but, mother, the serious part 
of it all is that it is true, and if it is true, what are we to do 
about it?" "Well," said the mother, "the only thing for 
us to do is to suppress it." 

Truth is the foundation, the superstructure, and the glit- 
tering dome of progress, says Ingersoll. 

"Nothing is greater, nothing is of more importance, than 
to find amid the errors and darkness of this life a shining 
truth. And yet, in order to preserve orthodox Christianity, 
a great many good Christian people think it is necessary 
that the truth should be suppressed. 

"All the sciences except theology are eager for facts, 
hungry for truth. On the brow of the finder of a fact a 
laurel is placed. In a theological seminary, if a professor 
finds a fact inconsistent with the creed, he must keep it 
secret or deny it, or lose his place." 

"Take theology from the world, and natural love re- 
mains. Science is still here, music will not be lost, the page 
of history will still be open, the walls of the world will 
still be adorned with art, and the niches rich with sculpture. 

"I have often wondered," says Mr. Ingersoll, "why 
somebody did not start a church on a sensible basis. 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 45 

"My idea is this: There are of course in every com- 
munity lawyers, doctors, merchants, and people of all 
trades and professions who have not the time during the 
week to pay any particular attention to history, poetry, art, 
or song. 

"Now it seems to me that it would be a good thing to 
have a church, and for these men to employ a man of 
ability, of talent, to preach to them Sundays, and let this 
man say to this congregation : Now I am going to preach 
to you for the first few Sundays, eight or ten or twenty, 
we will say, on the art, poetry, and intellectual achieve- 
ments of the Greeks. 

"Let this man study all the week and tell his congre- 
gation Sunday what he has ascertained. Let him give 
to his people the history of such men as Plato, as Socrates, 
what they did; or Aristotle, of his philosophy; of the 
great Greeks, their statesmen, their dramatists, their poets, 
actors, and sculptors, and let him show the debts that mod- 
ern civilization owes to these people. Let him, too, give 
their religions, their mythology — a mythology that has 
sown the seed of beauty in every land. 

"Then let him take up Rome. Let him show what a 
wonderful and practical people they were ; let him give an 
idea of their statesmen, orators, poets, lawyers, because 
probably the Romans were the greatest lawyers. And so 
let them go through with nation after nation, biography 
after biography, and at the same time let there be a Sun- 
day school connected with this church where the children 
shall be taught something of importance. 



46 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 

"For instance, teach them botany, and when a Sunday- 
is fair, clear and beautiful, let them go to the fields and 
woods with their teachers, and in a little while they will 
become acquainted with all kinds of trees and shrubs 
and flowering plants. I believe that such a church and 
such a Sunday school would at the end of a few years be 
the most intelligent collection of people in the United 
States. 

"To teach the children all of these things, and to teach 
their parents, too, the outlines of every science, so that 
every listener would know something of geology, some- 
thing of astronomy — how much better would that be than 
the old talk about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fall of 
man and the Garden of Eden, the flood and the atone- 
ment, and the wonders of Revelation !" 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 47 



III 

WHY DID ROBERT INGERSOLL ATTACK 
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY? 

Soon after the Civil War there was a great revival of 
emotional Christianity. The churches were teaching the 
doctrine of the total depravity of the human heart; that 
every soul that finds its way to the shore of this world 
is against God, and naturally hates God; that the little 
dimpled child in the cradle is simply a chunk of depravity. 

The Presbyterian clergy were teaching the doctrine of 
foreordination, predestination, and election, that an un- 
baptized infant dying went straight to hell. 

The Methodists were teaching that Satan was roaming 
around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might de- 
vour. All the orthodox churches were teaching the in- 
famous doctrine of everlasting damnation to the uncon- 
verted and unbaptized. 

Ministers were taking for their texts, "What shall it 
profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul?" "If the righteous scarcely are saved, where will 
the ungodly appear ?" In every hamlet there was a pray- 
ing band, holding nightly meetings, exhorting and entreat- 
ing men, women, and children to flee from the wrath of 
God. They would shout : "Now is the accepted time, now 
is the day of salvation. Tomorrow it may be too late. 



48 Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 

Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be made white 
as snow." 

Children were frightened, women became hysterical, 
and strong men grew pale and serious-minded. The people 
seemed to be temporarily insane. 

Robert Ingersoll heard hundreds of evangelical ser- 
mons. He heard hundreds of the most fearful descrip- 
tions of the tortures inflicted in hell, of the horrible state 
of the lost, of that terrible doctrine of fear, force and 
frightfulness, and he made up his mind to do what he 
could, not to get people out of hell, but to get hell out of 
the people. 

He addressed large and intelligent audiences on "the 
Gods/' "Some Mistakes of Moses," "The Liberty of Man, 
Woman and Child," "Orthodoxy," "What Must We Do 
to Be Saved?" and many other subjects. He fought the 
Clergy and succeeded so well in extinguishing the fires of 
hell that today there is scarcely a single red-hot coal left. 

With this wit, wisdom, and eloquence he laughed the 
Devil out of Court. The Clergy attacked him on all sides, 
declaring that he was insincere, that he was making light 
of holy things, and that he was destroying the consolation 
naturally arising from a belief in an everlasting hell. 

But Ingersoll fought bravely on, and said: 

"I oppose the church because she is the enemy of lib- 
erty; because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; be- 
cause she humiliates and degrades woman; because she 
teaches the doctrine of eternal torment, and the natural 
depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, 
impossible, and senseless; because she discourages self- 



Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 49 

reliance and laughs at good works; because she believes 
in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice, vicarious punish- 
ment and vicarious reward; because she regards repent- 
ance of more importance than restitution and because she 
sacrifices the world we have for one we know not of." 

And then he adds : "The free and generous, the tender 
and affectionate, will understand me. Those who have 
escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate 
my motives. The sad and suffering wives, the trembling 
and loving children will thank me. This is enough." 

Edgar Lee Masters' Tribute to Ingersoll. 
"To the lovers of Liberty, everywhere, 
But chiefly to the youth of America 
Who did not know Robert Ingersoll, 
Remember that he helped to make you free ! 
He was a leader in a war of guns for freedom, 
But a general in the war of ideas for freedom ! 
He braved the misunderstanding of friends, 
He faced the enmity of the powerful small of soul, 
And the insidious power of Rome ; 
He put aside worldly honors, 
And the sovereignty of place, 

He stripped off the armor of institutional friendships 
To dedicate his soul to the terrible deities of Truth and 
Beauty, 

And he went down into age and into the shadow 
With love of men for a staff 
And the light of his soul for a light, 
And with these alone! 



50 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

you martyrs trading martyrdom for heaven, 
And self-denial for eternal riches, 

How does your work and your death compare 

To a man's for whom the weal of the race 

And the cause of humanity here and now were enough 

To give life meaning and death as well? 

1 have not seen such faith in Israel!" 

DID ROBERT G. INGERSOLL BELIEVE IN A 
GOD? 

If he did believe in a God, in what God did he believe? 
In the Pittsburgh Despatch of December 11, 1880, there 
appeared an interview with Robert Ingersoll, in which he 
was asked the question : "Do you believe in a God ; and 
if so, what kind of a God?" 

"Let me in the first place lay a foundation for an an- 
swer," said Mr. Ingersoll. "Man gets all food ifor 
thought through the medium of the senses. The effect of 
nature upon the senses, and through the senses upon the 
brain, must be natural. All food for thought, then, is 
natural. As a consequence of this, there can be no super- 
natural idea in the human brain. Whatever idea there is 
must have been a natural product. If, then, there is no 
supernatural idea in the human brain, then there cannot 
be in the human brain an idea of the supernatural. If we 
can have no idea of the supernatural, and if the God 
of whom you speak is admitted to be supernatural, then, 
of course, I can have no idea of him, and I certainly can 
have no very fixed belief on any subject about which 



Robert G. Ingers oil's Religious Teachings 51 

I have no idea. There may be a God for all I know. 
There may be a thousand of them." 

It is a mistake to suppose, as many people do, that 
Ingersoll denied the existence of a God of infinite wis- 
dom. What he did deny was the existence of such a 
God as the Jehovah of the Jews. "Let me say once for 
all, he says, that when I speak of God, I mean the being 
described by Moses, the Jehovah of the Jews. There may 
be, for aught I know, somewhere in the unknown shore- 
less vast, some being whose dreams are constellations and 
within whose thought the infinite exists. About this be- 
ing, if such a one exists, I have nothing to say. He has 
written no books, inspired no barbarians, required no 
worship, and has prepared no hell in which to burn the 
honest seeker after truth. When I speak of God, I mean 
that God who prevented man from putting forth his 
hand and taking of the fruit of the tree of life that he 
might live forever ; of that God who multiplied the agon- 
ies of woman, increased the weary toil of man, and in 
his anger drowned a world; of that God whose altars 
reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated 
maidens, enslaved men, and filled the earth with cruelty 
and crime; of that God who made heaven for the few, 
hell for the many, and who will gloat forever and ever 
upon the writhings of the lost and damned. 

"And if there be a God who keeps a record of events, 
I wish him to write in the book of his remembrance op- 
posite my name that I denied all those things for him." 

The orthodox Christians in their confessions of faith 
describe God as a being without body, parts, or passions. 



52 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

"I defy any man in the world to write a better de- 
scription of nothing," says Colonel Ingersoll. 

"You cannot conceive of a finer word-painting of a 
vacuum — without body, parts, or passions. This descrip- 
tion of God is simply an effort of the church to describe 
a something of which it has no conception." 

If Mr. Ingersoll had admitted that he did believe in a 
God, he would have been asked to define him, and on that 
subject he has said: "I have never heard any God de- 
scribed that I believe in." Ingersoll, with all the wealth 
of his imagination, would not attempt to describe God. 
The descriptions of God have not been adequate enough, 
comprehensive enough, or exalted enough. No greater 
compliment could be paid to a Deity than to say : "I have 
never heard any God described that I believe in." 

Robert Ingersoll was a great lover of Nature. In an 
interview concerning the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Mr. 
Ingersoll said: "The real difference between us is, Mr. 
Beecher says God, I say Nature. The real agreement be- 
tween us is, we both say Liberty." 

Good old Dame Nature was Robert Ingersoll's god. 
"Let the ghosts of superstition fade away, the world is 
here with its hills and seas and plains, with its seasons of 
smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer 
of shade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn 
with the laden boughs, when the withered banners of the 
corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely 
wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color 
what they touch, weaves in the autumn wood her tapes- 
tries of gold and brown." 



Robert G. I nger soil's Religious Teachings 53 

Yes, Ingersoll loved Nature and Nature loved him. 
"The rise and set of sun, the birth and death of day, 
the dawns of silver and the dusks of gold, the wonders 
of the rain and snow, the shroud of Winter and the many- 
colored robe of Spring, the lonely moon with nightly loss 
or gain, the serpent lightning and the thunder's voice, the 
tempest's fury and the zephyr's sigh, the threat of storm 
and promise of the bow, cathedral clouds with dome and 
spire, earthquake and strange eclipse, frost and fire, the 
snow-crowned mountains with their tongues of flame, the 
fields of space sown thick with stars, the wandering 
comets hurrying past the fixed and sleepless sentinels of 
night, the marvels of the earth and air, the perfumed 
flower, the painted wing, the waveless pool that held with- 
in its magic breast the image of the startled face, the 
mimic echo that made a record in the viewless air, the 
pathless forest and the boundless seas, the ebb and flow of 
tides, the slow, deep breathing of some vague and mon- 
strous life, the miracle of birth, the mystery of dream and 
death, and over all the silent and immeasureable dome. 

"These were the warp and woof, and at the loom sat 
Love and Fancy, Hope and Fear, and wove the won- 
drous tapestries whereon we find pictures of gods and 
fairy lands and all the legends that were told when Nature 
rocked the cradle of the infant world." 



54 Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 



IV 

DID ROBERT INGERSOLL HAVE HOPE OF 
IMMORTALITY? 

Yes. Search the libraries of the world and you will 
not find anything that compares with Ingersoll's descrip- 
tion of life, death, and immortality. 

"When one whom we hold dear has reached the end of 
life and laid his burden down, it is but natural for us, his 
friends, to pay the tribute of respect and love; to tell his 
virtues, to express our sense of loss and speak above the 
sculptured clay some word of hope." 

Ingersoll put the star of hope above the humblest grave. 
"If there is beyond the veil, beyond the night called death, 
another world to which men carry all the failures and the 
triumphs of this life; if above and over all there be a 
God who loves the right, an honest man has naught to 
fear. 

"If there be another world in which sincerity is a 
virtue, in which fidelity is loved and courage honored, 
then all is well with the dear friends whom we have lost. 

"The storm is spent, the winds are hushed, the aching 
heart has ceased to beat, and within the brain all thoughts, 
all hopes and fears, ambitions, memories, rejoicings and 
regrets, all images and pictures of the world of life, are 
now as though they had not been. And yet, Hope, the 



Robert G. Inger soil's Religious Teachings 55 

child of Love, the deathless, beyond the darkness sees 
the dawn. 

"Nothing is nobler than to plant the flower of gratitude 
on the grave of those who have labored for the good of 
all. 

" 'Gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its fragrance 
in the human heart.' 

"Loving words sow seeds of love in every gentle 
heart. In the great drama of human life, all are actors, 
and no one knows his part. In this great play the scenes 
are shifted by unknown forces, and the commencement, 
plot, and end are still unknown, are still unguessed. One 
by one the players leave the stage, and others take their 
places. There is no pause, the play goes on. No prompt- 
er's voice is heard, and no one has the slightest clue to 
what the next scene is to be. 

"Will this great drama have an end? Will the curtain 
fall at last? Will it rise again upon some other stage? 
Reason says perhaps, and Hope still whispers, yes." 

"Only flowers should be laid upon the tomb. In life's 
last pillow there should be no thorns. A little while ago 
a babe was found, one that had been abandoned by its 
mother, left as a legacy to chance or fate. The warm 
heart of Mary Fiske, now cold in death, was touched. 
She took the waif and held it lovingly to her breast and 
made the child her own. We pray thee, Mother Nature, 
that thou wilt take this woman and hold her as tenderly 
in thy arms as she held and pressed against her generous, 
throbbing heart, the abandoned babe." 

"Let us believe that pure thoughts, brave words and 



56 Robert G. IngersoWs Religious Teachings 

generous deeds can never die. Let us believe that they 
bear fruit and add forever to the well being of the human 
race. Let us believe that a noble, self-denying life in- 
creases the moral wealth of man, and gives assurance 
that the future will be grander than the past." 

"When the Angel of Death, the masked and voiceless, 
enters the door of home, there come with her all the 
daughters of Compassion, and of these, Love and Hope 
remain forever. 

"In the presence of death, how beliefs and dogmas 
wither and decay! How loving words and deeds burst 
into blossom ! Pluck from the tree of life these flowers, 
and there remain but the barren thorns of bigotry and 
creed." 

"All wish for happiness beyond this life. 

"All hope to meet the loved and lost. 

"In every heart there grows this sacred flower. Im- 
mortality is a word that Hope through all the ages has 
been whispering to Love. A loved one dies and we wish 
to meet again; and from the affection of the human 
heart grew the great oak of the hope of immortality. 

"Wherever men have loved, wherever they have 
dreamed, wherever hope has spread its wings, the idea of 
immortality has existed. 

"The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed 
and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves 
of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of 
time and fate was not born of any book, nor of any creed, 
nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, 
and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and 



Robert G. IngersolVs Religious Teachings 57 

clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the 
lips of death. It is the rainbow Hope, shining upon the 
tears of grief." 

"The mystery of life and death we cannot comprehend. 
The miracle of thought we cannot understand. This chaos 
called the world has never been explained. The golden 
bridge of life from gloom emerges and on shadow rests. 
Beyond this we do not know. Fate is speechless, destiny 
is dumb, and the secret of the future has never yet been 
told. 

"We love, we wait, we hope. The more we love the 
more we fear. Upon the tenderest hearts the deepest 
shadows fall. All paths, whether filled with thorns or 
flowers, end here. Here success and failure are the same. 
The rag of wretchedness and the purple robe of power 
all difference and distinction lose in this democracy of 
death. Character survives, goodness lives, Love is im- 
mortal. 

"And yet to all a time may come when the fevered lips 
of life will long for the cool, delicious kiss of death when, 
tired of the dust and glare of day, we all shall hear with 
joy the rustling garments of the night. 

"What can we say of death ? What can we say of the 
dead ? Where they have gone reason cannot go, and from 
thence revelation has not come. But let us believe that 
above the cradle Nature bends and smiles, and lovingly 
above the dead in benediction] holds her outstretched 
hands. 

"I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and 
yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in 



58 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should 
be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. 

"The future has been filled with fear, stained and pol- 
luted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of 
life, the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and 
in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep 
side by side. . . . No man, standing where the horizon of 
a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a 
future filled with pain and tears. 

" Maybe that death gives all there is of worth to life. 
If those we press and strain within our arms could never 
die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. May- 
be this common fate treads from out the paths between 
our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate. And I had 
rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal 
life where love is not. Another life is naught unless we 
know and love again the ones who love us here." 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 59 



V 

"Beware, when God lets loose a thinker on this planet !" 
says Emerson. Robert G. Ingersoll was a great thinker. 
He was the greatest exponent of liberal thought this world 
has ever known, and he devoted the greater part of his 
life to the cause of Freedom, and to that one thing worth 
living for, worth fighting for, and worth writing for, and 
that is, Liberty for Man, Woman, and Child. "His voice 
was for the right when freedom's friends were few." 

He saw the orthodox world standing in the way of 
intellectual progress. The human race was imprisoned. 
Upon the brain was the fetter of superstition. 

Parents believed Geology to be a dangerous study, and 
not suitable for the minds of children, because it did not 
harmonize with the book of Genesis. 

Astronomy was a science that should be discouraged, 
because it led to doubt concerning such stories as the 
Flood, the Tower of Babel, and General Joshua stopping 
the sun and moon. 

Philosophy was thought to be a branch of knowledge 
calculated to make men deny ecclesiastical authority. 

These sciences, based on truth, were not welcome 
guests in the orthodox world, when Ingersoll attacked 
the Christianity of his day. 



60 Robert G. Ingersoll's Religious Teachings 

Such men as Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, 
Hume, and a host of others who have filled the world with 
intellectual light, received little or no praise from an 
othodox pulpit. 

Robert Ingersoll did not wish to destroy Christianity 
as taught by Christ, but he sought to destroy the theo- 
logical weeds which were choking true religion, so that we 
might garner the golden grains of truth and joy. 

His idea was that theology had no more to do with true 
religion than graft has with good government. 

Someone has said that a great man is the mainspring 
in the wonderful machinery by which God from time to 
time revolutionizes the world. Robert Ingersoll revolu- 
tionized religious thought. He was instrumental in re- 
moving the theological thorns, but the roses of religion he 
did not disturb. He struck a sympathetic chord in the 
human heart that will continue to vibrate through all the 
ages. 

He did for mental freedom what Lincoln did for physi- 
cal freedom. If God raised up Abraham Lincoln to take 
the shackles from the limbs of slaves, then God raised up 
Robert Ingersoll to take the fetters from the brain of 
man. 

Robert Ingersoll was a Philanthropist. He lived for 
others, and allowed others to live for themselves. No 
one can overestimate the good accomplished by this mar- 
velous man. He helped to slay the heart-devouring mon- 
ster of the Christian world. He tried to civilize the 
church, to humanize the creeds, to soften pious hearts of 
stone, to take the fear from mother's hearts, the chains 



Robert G. IngersoWs Religious Teachings 61 

of creed from every brain, to put the star of hope in every 
sky and over every grave. 

Attacked on every side, maligned by those who preached 
the law of love, he wavered not, but fought whole-hearted 
to the end. 

He was extravagantly charitable, a model of virtue, a 
lover of liberty and a benefactor of the human race. 

His mind was free, his heart was pure, and his con- 
science stainless. He reaped the harvest of his brain, and 
left to humanity a treasure that time cannot tarnish — a 
monument not made with hands, he left with us, more en- 
during than granite, more inspiring than art, and in the 
shadow of which superstition cannot grow. 

The star of Ingersoll is the brightest orb in the ora- 
torical sky. He was the lord of logic and laughter. He 
had the presence, the pose, the voice, the face that mir- 
rored thought, the unconscious gesture of the orator. 

He had a wide horizon and a mental sky, logic as un- 
erring as mathematics, humor as rich as Autumn when the 
boughs and vines bend with the weight of ripened fruit, 
while the forests flame with scarlet, brown, and gold. 

In his laughter there was logic, in his wit wisdom, and 
in his humor philosophy and philanthropy. 

He was a supreme artist. He painted pictures with 
words. He knew the strength, the velocity of verbs, the 
color, the light and shade of adjectives. 

He understood the warp and woof of language, and 
with the simplest words could weave exquisite garments 
of thought and magnificent robes of ideas. 

"Nothing can be grander than to sow the seeds of 



62 Robert G. Ingers oil's Religions Teachings 



noble thoughts and virtuous deeds, to liberate the bodies 
and the souls of men, to earn the grateful homage of a 
race, and then, in life's last shadowy hour, to know that 
the historian of Liberty will be compelled to write your 
name." 



"Farewell, brave soul! Upon thy grave I lay this 
tribute of respect and love. When last our hands were 
joined, I said these parting words: 'Long life! 3 And I 
repeat them now" 



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